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drdna wrote:

I agree it is a mistake to get hung up on imaging as an end in itself, but it is a artifact of the process, and I am not going to say it is not related to making the correct connection. To have proper imaging is like saying: there is a door that allowed me to get to the next room of the house.

It is a mistake to get hung up on anything. However, imaging is not an artifact of process but a byproduct of process. Here is where the people who read too much of dummy audio publications are losing as they are not able to differentiate between imaging and soundstage. If you remember I always advocate a playback that is callable to throw the “most able” imaging but in context of “minimum” soundstage. What is “most able” imaging and what is “minimum soundstage” are very loaded questions – I would not go there here but I just would say that there is a LOT of behind it and answers to that load-ness lay out of pure audio.

I disagree with you view regarding imaging being as a door that allowed to get to the next room of the house. Wrong imaging is not a blocking mechanism itself; it does not prevent you to do to any room you want. Right imaging might help you to go in next room through the wall but the wrong one does not shut the door. There is in here a very fine moment – the good might be shut with wrong imaging but not because the imaging was wrong but because the mechanism that destroyed the imaging shut the door. In this case imaging acts as fast indication, sort of with mice on submarine during WWII, this dies first and indicates that something else is wrong. Let me give you an association. You can’t judge a person health base upon the cleanness if his/her let say face skin. However, if you see a person with very strong rash on his/her face then you can make an accurate assumption that something is wrong now with this person. The very same is with imaging. The incorrect or better to say “low level imaging” is indication of varicose deficiencies that acts as imbibes self-debugger. Install speakers in wrong place, disregard the DPoLS, skew up with time aliment, use wrong Q in crossovers, improper ground return passes, do zillion other mistakes and imaging will scream very first. Sure, no one “listen for the imaging” but some people with some listening intelligence who know how to practice “target listening” know how to “use” imaging for playback debugging.

As you noted I moved my accent from imaging as expressive tool to imaging as technical tool, I did nit not accidently. The point that I am trying to make is that even a person who is clueless about cultural and spirituals aspects of musicality but who has high technical listing skills can very much use imaging as very useful audio tool. One of the examples might be Bob Crump. He died 3-4 years back but he is one of the few people among the Morons which whom I was able to have very productive conversation about imaging. Bob was not too interesting person from musical perceptive and was even more boring in audio world (he was associated with incredible amount of humans waste that I would prefer to die as soon as possible and d preferably in slow and painful death) but Bob also had a very-very good “targeted listening” familiarity that I valued quote high and in fact I was many time surprised how accurate he was. We have many conversations his him and he was very right to USE imaging as a mechanism of the first alert. I consider him under no circumstances as someone who among of my friends but it did not prevent up to talk, and very productively, about the way how imaging might be USED.

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